Since the Library Foundation began promoting it last year, the “Buy a Brick” program has hit donors like a ton of you-know-whats. The bricks in the main lobby are going for $1,000. For $500, you can still buy a brick in the Trellis Walk area. The most popular bricks are the ones in the Garden Courtyard, which cost $150 ﻿apiece and will not be available after Oct. 1.

“When we talk about the library, the words we use are ‘access’ and ‘community,’ and that’s what this (bricks) campaign is all about,” said Jay Hill, CEO of the San Diego Public Library Foundation. “This is where the stories are being told.”

At the Logan Heights branch library, the story of the Teen Council brick is one of teamwork and tamales.

Because this library acts as a community center, after-school hangout and all-around support network, the teen volunteers do a lot more than shelve books. In return for what the library does for them, the teens help run its popular after-school music program. They are homework tutors and pre-college mentors. The council members also take on yearly fundraising projects. The group’s latest project was supporting the new library in the form of a $150 brick, which the teens paid for by selling tamales and champurrado (hot chocolate) at the Christmas holidays.

The Teen Council members won’t see their brick until they tour the grand new library later next month, ﻿but knowing it’s there is a cause for noisy celebration. “We really wanted to buy a brick to help the library and give back,” said Sara Espinosa, who shares the Teen Council presidency with Edwina Jimenez. “We have done a lot of work to get to where we are, and the community has helped us out so much. So this is something we wanted to do for the community.

Some people loved the bricks so much, they bought them in bulk.

After Vector Resources Inc. spent the last few years on the library’s voice and data network infrastructure, general manager Debi Preece ﻿felt so invested in the library’s future, she invested in about a dozen courtyard bricks. Since the library was beginning to feel like her home away from home anyway, she decided to put a piece of her heart there, too.

“I was so excited, I can’t even tell you,” said Preece, who bought bricks for her in-laws, her former in-laws, her daughters and her late Uncle Bobby (the much-loved SDSU athletic trainer and professor Robert J. Moore). “The chance to honor my family and be part of San Diego history and this iconic building was very meaningful to me. It seemed like a cool way to pay tribute to the important people in my life.”

Longtime local attorney and library supporter Herbert J. Solomon bought 27 lobby bricks for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And thanks to the foundation, there is also a brick in honor of Solomon and his late wife, Elene. Solomon got a tour of the library earlier this month, but he never saw his bricks. Probably because he was too busy taking in the structure they helped to build. One precious memory at a time.

“It is magnificent,” Solomon said of the new library. “I didn’t find my bricks, but that’s not the reason I was there. Sometime I’ll find out where they are.”